Friday, May 6, 2011

This recipe for easy, homemade granola was one of the gems in that book that we've loved ever since.

It still makes me nostalgic for those days when we were learning how to be married in that tiny apartment by the train in our college town.

I've since changed it up a bit through the years to suit our tastes and the recipe is below, but first...

Since I'm getting a little sappy, I thought I'd throw this in to the mix.

That boy whom I love is giving me his best "I am DONE holding up this giant piece of butterfly paper for pictures of your yogurt!!! I have a life" stare-down.

For better or for worse,

Ingredients:

5 cups oats

1/2 t. salt

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup concentrated apple juice

1/2 cup dry milk

1/3 cup honey

Mix sugar, juice, dry milk and honey in a saucepan and heat over medium heat only until sugar dissolves. Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and pour sugar mixture slowly over dry mixture. Blend well. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

When we bought our home in September, we knew we had a LOT of work ahead of us.

And we're slowly making some progress, taking it one room at a time.

(More like: we'll do a little in here, then a little in there, and maybe one day we'll have this house done!)

Since I recently posted about our front door makeover (you can read about that here), I wanted to show you the other side of that door...

our very narrow and blah, blah, bland entryway.

The very first thing we did (and by "we" I mean Jeremy) was scrape the popcorn ceilings (you can read all about that messy messhereand see a bit of the dust pile in that top photo).

Then I got to work.

I created my own stencil with my Silhouette machine and cardstock but you could easily find a pattern you like and cut it with an exacto knife. My stencil was definitely not a complicated design.

Okay. So there is PLENTY of DIY stenciling advice out there, but here's what worked for me and I'm pretty sure I tried just about everything else:

My main method:

1. I used a small paintbrush with lots of paint on it.

2. I held the stencil in place with one hand while I painted the outline of the stencil with the other hand.

3. Then I removed the stencil to paper towels and blotted it.

4. Next I filled in my lines I had outlined.

Another method I liked:

I used the same small paintbrush with very little paint on it and stippled the stencil on the wall. In other words, I didn't paint and fill in lines. This technique was a lot faster, but the lines weren't as clean. It worked very well for the small dots that needed to be filled.

So... I changed my design horse mid-stream and opted for frames with stenciling inside, instead of stenciling the entire wall.

I'm so glad I did! It was a lot faster and adds more visual interest.

Jer and I measured the squares that I had envisioned in my mind's eye and I did all the painting and stenciling (he did help with the top and corners).

Then Jeremy used molding to frame out the edges.

I created some simple, custom art using spray painted Wal-Mart frames that I scraped with steel wool.

I also added our family name in brown vinyl to make it a little more personal and finished the space off with a new lighting fixture and rug.